Nowadays, it is essential to promote an interdisciplinary approach in classrooms, integrating disciplines such as biology and mathematics. This necessitates familiarity with specific problem-solving practices employed by the expert community, such as mathematical modelling. This perspective piece explores a mathematical modelling practice to…

Biology is a data-driven discipline facilitated greatly by computer programming skills. This article describes an introductory experiential programming activity that can be integrated into distance learning environments. Students are asked to develop their own Python programs to identify the nature of alleles linked to disease. This activity…

Bioinformatics--the so-called shotgun marriage between biology and computer science--is an interdiscipline. Despite interdisciplinarity being seen as a virtue, for having the capacity to solve complex problems and foster innovation, it has the potential to place projects and people in anomalous categories. For example, valorised…

We conducted a literature review of using educational technology in biology learning from 2001 to 2010. A total of 36 empirical articles were included for review. Based upon the content analyses of these studies, such as technologies utilized, student sample, biological topics involved, the research purpose, and methodology, the following…

The effectiveness and efficiency of individual versus collaborative learning was investigated as a function of instructional format among 140 high school students in the domain of biology. The instructional format either emphasized worked examples, which needed to be studied or the equivalent problems, which needed to be solved. Because problem…

The aims of this article are to review the multiple relations between creativity and personality, exploring the measurement instruments that have been used to identify them. Specific personality characteristics and traits found in highly creative individuals and the interaction of these traits with the creative process are described. In addition,…

Phosphorylation of proteins by protein kinases is an important mechanism in the regulation of protein activity. Among hundreds of protein kinases present in human cells, PKA, the first kinase discovered, belongs to the most important and best characterized group of these enzymes. The author presents an experiment that analyzes the "in vitro"…

In order to be effective competitors in the marketplace, students must be able to think critically, communicate complex ideas through writing, collaborate with peers, and apply their knowledge of biological science to generate solutions for issues facing society. In this paper we examine the nature of the instructional tools, strategies, and…

Invention activities challenge students to tackle problems that superficially appear unrelated to the course material but illustrate underlying fundamental concepts that are fundamental to material that will be presented. During our invention activities in a first-year biology class, students were presented with problems that are parallel to those…

From a theoretical viewpoint, educational interfaces that facilitate communicative actions involving representations central to a domain can maximize students' effort associated with constructing new schemas. In addition, interfaces that minimize working memory demands due to the interface per se, for example by mimicking existing non-digital work…

The authors investigate how an integrative approach can be applied to teaching of different disciplines at school. Interdisciplinarity can be defined as a process of answering a question, solving a problem or addressing a topic that is too broad to be dealt with by a single discipline. In addition to an integrated understanding of the topic, the…

Student performance in lecture-based versus case study-based instruction was compared in this study. Case-based teaching that emphasized problem solving and discussion significantly improved student performance on exams throughout the semester and enhanced students' abilities to correctly answer application- and analysis-type questions. (Contains…

In many teacher training courses, reflection upon practice plays a very important role in learning to teach. A number of strategies have been developed to help student teachers learn to reflect. Current reflection strategies often focus on problematic instead of on positive experiences. Ideas from positive psychology and solution-based therapy…

In this article we recount our experiences of teaching photosynthesis in an integrated way to secondary school students and teachers, science undergraduates and postgraduates. Conceptual questions were posed to investigate learners' fundamental understanding of simple light-dependent and light-independent processes taught to most students at…

We studied the effect of formative assessment and feedback on learning. Students produced phylogenetic trees based upon morphological and molecular data. The trees were projected in class, feedback provided, and the process repeated twice with new data. Assessment revealed that these in-class modules resulted in significant improvement in student…